Brave (Healer) (34 page)

             
‘You promise?’

             
‘I promise,’ he kisses my forehead and, with that to boost my confidence, I pick up the courage and the phone to call my dad.

             
The tone rings out for a while and leaves me feeling anxious. I hope everything is okay with the baby and with Lily. I’ve been frightened ever since I saw Shannon lying on the hospital bed that my blood wouldn’t work and that the cancer would come back to tear my family apart. However, my worries are dashed when my dad picks up and says hello.

             
‘It’s me, dad,’ I say. I don’t even let him answer before I start my speech. I thought it would be hard to find the right words to tell my dad what is about to happen to me, to us, but the words come tumbling out with ease, ‘Here’s the thing. I’m in New York with my friends. They’re witches. They’re the reason Maurice never hurt us. They’re the reason he’s dead and they’re going to help me again, dad. The only way to stop the vampires is if I’m not a Healer anymore.’

             
‘What are you saying?’

             
‘I’m saying that they can take it away. They can make me normal,’ I say.

             
‘Cassie, are you sure?’

             
I don’t know how exactly I thought he’d react. I thought he’d be happy, worried maybe, but this isn’t what I expected. He is uneasy, he is quiet and he is making me doubt my decision. This is what he should want. His daughter would finally fit in and we could have a normal father-daughter relationship. We both want that. We want to honour my mother by stopping the vampires in their tracks, don’t we?

             
‘I’m sure,’ I gulp. This has to be the right thing to do. I won’t live my life in fear. I have to be brave and face the risk of things going wrong because it’ll all work out, right?

             
My dad says nothing else and his silence tells me more than words could; I just don’t know what the message is. What is he telling me by saying nothing at all? My dad hasn’t always been good at communicating how he feels. When I was younger he frustrated me by telling me what to do but not telling me why but hasn’t he always been trying to protect me? Haven’t his actions always spoken louder than his words? This time is his silence doing all the talking. I feel shaky.

             
‘Well, I wanted to tell you because I’ll be quite different when I get home,’ I say, trying to desperately get rid of the discomfort. I even found myself using Oliver’s phrase: ‘quite different.’ I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean and why did I say it?

             
‘I understand,’ he says.

             
There is another five minutes of silence which makes me chew at my lips nervously. I look at Oliver who raises his thick eyebrows expectantly. This isn’t going like I imagined. I had been nervous to tell my dad but I didn’t think he would act so bizarrely.

             
‘Well, you know I’ll love you no matter what you do or what you are,’ he says but it feels like a tagalong, like he is obliged to say. He means it, yes, he is my dad and he will love me no matter what happens but what isn’t he telling me? Will he be less proud of me for making this rash decision? I don’t know. I need more time to figure out what I want but I don’t have that time. The change is going to happen tonight.

             
‘I love you too, dad,’ I whisper and he hangs up.

TWENTY-SIX

             
The night arrives, as much as I wish it wouldn’t, and we walk for almost an hour to end up in a barren park in the outskirts of New York. It looks like a haunted scene from a horror movie with the creaky swings and the rusty slide. It’s the perfect place to perform a magic ritual with witches, werewolves and vampires.

             
Arrow’s friends have promised a young, wealthy vampire a meeting with a real Healer and he is set to show up  in twenty minutes. I am holding on to Oliver like he is a crutch; since my phone call with my dad I’ve been unable to stop shaking. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ Oliver whispers in my ear as we stand around in the freezing cold and watch Arrow and Garrett light candles.

             
There are five other witches standing nearby chanting unknown words which give this ghost town an equally eerie soundtrack. Rose and Gabe are chatting, like old friends do, as if nothing is amiss. I supposed years of working for Maurice and being surrounded by myths and the supernatural must give you a thick skin to these sort of scenes.

             
‘I’m fine,’ I bark at Oliver but feel instantly guilty about my aggressive tone. It’s not his fault. I wish I could shake this uncertainty away but it seems to be sticking to me and even though it is the coldest day I’ve ever experienced the sensation feels like hot tar all over my body.

             
‘He’ll be here in a few minutes,’ Arrow says and hugs me. ‘Everything is going to be fine.’

             
Her words unhinge me. The worst thing anyone can say to me is that everything will be fine. I bite my tongue so hard and I realise that by tomorrow I won’t be able to pierce my gums with my teeth like this without cutting myself. I’ll be quite different.

             
I swallow my shaky feelings and smile at her before she turns to help the other witches with their chanting. When the vampire comes, he might fight or flee so we have to be quick. They will have to stop him, get his blood and kill him and once I have his blood I need to take the blood of the others’ in a fast procession. There can’t be big gaps between each intake which means this whole thing is going to be rushed and there will be huge room for error.

             
‘He’s here,’ Arrow says. We all turn round and see the pale vampire approach us. We see his face fall from calm, self-assurance to fear very quickly as he sees the strange crowd and candles.

             
Time to go.

             
The witches begin to chant and I cling to Oliver’s arm tightly as I watch the vampire fall to his knees and freeze like he is being encapsulated in the ice that covers the ground. Two witches move to his side and thrust a stake into his marble skin to reveal his black blood.

             
Things happen very quickly. Garrett pulls Oliver away from me and pushes me into the circle of candles so I’m left alone. Fear kicks in. Am I doing the right thing? Then I watch as Oliver, Gabe and Rose are staked and their blood is collected. The chanting gets louder. A witch moves towards me with the stake with dripping vampire blood and thrusts it towards me, ‘Drink!’

             
I put the edge of the stake into my mouth and taste the sickly sweet flavour of the blood. As I gulp and swallow I see the vampire crumble into ash and my friends look at me with frightened eyes. Gabe’s mouth lies open, my heart pounds as I watch him staring at me. Rose’s eyes are filling with tears. She is right in the middle of a magic spell, just like the time her parents died and her brother was injured, the same brother who is dying right now. How can I have put her through this? I see Oliver look at me with those puppy dog eyes, they’re filled with love and fear and my mouth goes dry.

             
Everything is moving so fast. It’s a blur. I can’t handle it. I can’t. I can’t do this. I’m a Healer. That’s who I am. This doesn’t feel right.

             
‘Stop!’ I scream as a witch comes towards me with Gabe’s blood on a wooden pallet. ‘Stop!’

             
Oliver runs towards me, knocking over some candles, the witches start to shout that the whole spell is ruined now. Oliver has his arms wrapped around me and is whispering that I’m okay but my head is so woozy that his face starts to lose its shape and his voice becomes distant.

             
My dad’s silence becomes clear to me. He doesn’t want this for me. He doesn’t want me to be normal. He wouldn’t swap me for anyone in the world and I realise that’s what I was trying to do. I was trying to make my mother proud, I was trying to make everyone proud of me but I should’ve realised that they are so proud of me just as I am.

             
The witches are angry. I’ve messed with their spell and therefore their witchy energy. Oliver holds me, he sways and I close my eyes and let the world around me blur. I forget the angry witches and the pile of ashes. I feel Rose’s presence like a light shining on me. Her hand settles on my back while Oliver holds me and then there is another hand, one that is a stranger to me in many ways but familiar in others. Gabe, who has always found it so difficult to touch me, places both of his hands on my shoulder and I’m surrounded by the three people who have shaped, broken and reshaped me time and time again.

             
For a moment, with these people surrounding me, everything is clear. Going through with this spell, I wanted to change who I was. I wanted to be someone else for these people but they’re holding me and I haven’t changed one bit. I didn’t need to change who I was, who I am.

             
Then everything goes black.

             
I wake up and I am on my bed in the guest room in Arrow’s apartment. My eyes are foggy at first but once they adjust I see that Oliver is lying beside me and Rose is perched on the end of the bed. ‘She’s awake,’ Oliver gasps.

             
I wonder if I’m dead. I wonder if my interference with the magic had messed everything up and killed me. Had it killed Oliver and Rose too? Is that why they are here with me? Is this heaven? I reach out my hand and rest it on Oliver’s chest. His heartbeat feels real.

             
‘Oh my god,’ Rose jumps up and is by my side, kissing my forehead, her eyes are brimming with tears. ‘I was so scared, Cassie, don’t you ever do that to me again.’

             
I’ve put her through hell. She thought she’d lost yet another person she loved to the perils of magic. How could I do that to her? I look at Oliver and see the worry written plainly all over his face. How could I do that to him? He has nobody but June at home and I was about to push the man I love back into a life of loneliness.

             
‘I want to kill you,’ Rose says, her tears spilling off as she starts to cry and laugh at the same time.

             
‘That would be ironic,’ I croak.

             
‘Don’t be smart. I’m so angry with you,’ Rose pouts.

             
‘I’m sorry,’ I put a hand on her soft face which is moist with her tears. There aren’t enough days in the year, enough years in my life, to give me enough time to apologise to Rose and Oliver for what I’ve put them through. Not just last night but over this whole year.

             
Rose leaves Oliver and I to have a private moment.

             
‘Why did you do it?’ Oliver asks me after giving me one long kiss. ‘Why didn’t you go through with it?’

             
There isn’t one reason why I stopped the spell from going ahead. I felt freedom at my fingertips. I could be everything I’d ever wanted and I could be rid of the vampires for good but something stopped me. Was it the expressions on my friend’s faces as they gave their blood for me? Was it the ominous sounds of the chanting? Had I made up my mind when I’d called my dad and heard his silence? Did I make my mind up a long time before that? I realise I could never not be a Healer, just as I could never stop being stubborn, selfish at times, crazy and wildly passionate about the people I care about.

             
One day I will try to put into words what stopped me from tasting normalcy for the first time in my life but right now I just want to put my head on Oliver’s chest and feel like me. ‘Are you mad?’

             
‘Not as mad as Rose,’ he chuckles which makes his chest vibrate. ‘No, I’m not mad. I’m sort of happy. I was hoping you wouldn’t go through with it.’

             
I lift my head up to look at his face, ‘Why?’

             
‘I don’t know. I like you how you are,’ he taps the end of my nose with his finger.

             
‘What about the vampires?’ I ask.

             
‘I’ll kick their asses one at a time if I have to,’ he says.

             
For the first time in my life, I made a decision all by myself and it feels great. It feels amazing. Who would have guessed I would end up here? Six months ago if somebody had told me how my life would be now I would laugh in their face. I could never have imagined being with a man that wasn’t Gabe but now the idea of giving myself to a man who loved me half heartedly, who made me feel inferior, made me dislike myself, sounds so bizarre to me. I have the most amazing people in my life now and I wouldn’t change it for the world.